WINELAND THE GOOD 



Norway that the disaster occurred, and they were driven by 

 storms to the Greenland coast; but since it cannot be denied 

 that, as the verse has been translated, the expressions appear 

 somewhat unnatural, it is difficult to form any opinion as 

 to this.i 



If this runic inscription from Ringerike has been cor- 

 rectly copied and interpreted — which, as has been said, is un- 

 certain — then this and Adam of Bremen's information from 

 Denmark would show that Wineland was known and discussed 

 in various parts of the North in the eleventh century, long be- 

 fore Icelandic literature began to be put into writing. But 

 strangely enough, in the Norwegian thirteenth-century work, 

 " Historia Norvegiae," no mention is made of Wineland, al- 

 though in other respects the author has made extensive use of 

 Adam of Bremen's work; he merely states that Greenland ap- 

 proaches the African Islands, by which, as pointed out above 

 (p. i), he shows clearly enough that Wineland was regarded as 

 belonging to the African Islands, or Insulas Fortunatae. The 

 " King's Mirror," - which gives a detailed description of Green- 

 land, does not mention Wineland, although the author evidently 

 held the view that Greenland approached the universal con- 

 tinent (i.e., Africa) on the south. The knowledge of it must 

 soon have been forgotten in Norway, or it was regarded as 

 a mythical country, while the tradition persisted longer in 

 Iceland. 



The last time we meet with the name of Wineland in 

 connection with a voyage is in the " Islandske Annaler," ^ 

 where it is related in the year 1121 that: " Eirikr, bishop of 

 Greenland [also called Eirikr Upsi], went out to seek 

 [leita] Wineland." But we are not told anything more 

 of this expedition. The use of "leita" shows that Wine- 



1 1 cannot accept the conjectures that Prof. Yngvar Nielsen thinks may be 

 based upon this inscription [1905]. 



2 It is true that only a portion of this work has been preserved, and that 

 Wineland may have been mentioned in the part that has not come down to us 

 (if indeed the work was ever finished) ; but this is not likely. 



2 Cf. Storm's edition, 1888, pp. 19, 59, 112, 252, 320, 473. 



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